“Always believe that you’re great even before anybody else believes it!
This is one of the many lessons that we learned from Jay-Z during his revealing chat with Hot 97′s Angie Martinez. Yesterday afternoon, Jay stopped by to promote his new album Magna Carta Holy Grail, as well as his marriage, fatherhood and views on success.
While there, he revealed that fatherhood has definitely changed his perspective on life, because he’s no longer afraid to fail, and he definitely doesn’t have time for the who’s dating who gossip. He also talks about his current relationship with Dame Dash, says he’s watched a few episodes of Love & Hip Hop (just to be in the know), and gives words of wisdom for those out there that are still struggling to make it.
Catch a few things we’ve learned from the interview below:
1) He’s not the least bit surprised at the moves he has pulled off. He attributes success to getting over the fear of failure.
On if he can believe how much he’s accomplished
It’s a bit of business acumen and it’s a bit of believing I can and not being afraid to fail. That holds a lot of people back, that fear of failure. I’m a person that loves winning. [But] I don’t hate to lose. That’s a different personality trait. Some people hate to lose and that drives them.
2) Fatherhood has changed his perspective on life.
[Fatherhood is] just more reaffirming the things that’s really important in life and editing your life in such a way that you don’t have anything that’s distracting you. Anything that’s taking away from that time you should be with your child.
On if he feels more vulnerable now that he has a child
Of course, which is a scary thing for me, then that turns into angry and I have to control it.
On his parents
They were together my early years, till I was 9 or something. That’s what made it worse, ’cause I knew. Some people don’t even get to feel that sort of love at all so you can’t miss what you don’t have. It’s still this empty feeling. There’s more of an empty feeling having it then having it taken away from you.
3) He’s not big on social media, blogs or reality TV but he is well aware that they exist and partake in them every now and again.
On Twitter
I don’t know at what point it got verified because it was a bunch of fake ones but it’s a real one.
On his recent Twitter Q&A
I was just in a great mood. It’s new rules; let’s just do something different. Let’s just break this whole…if it was run a certain way let’s …Let me just break that.
On Blogs
Not that much but once in a while, yeah. More music though, not about gossip. I don’t have enough time in the day to invest in that.
On Reality TV
I’ve seen it, yes. I’ve seen everything at least once or twice.
You still have to be able to rap about stuff…
I’m not sourcing material from those places. I’m just curious about it so I can have a conversation. I’m really just an ESPN/HBO guy. That’s pretty much the extent of my TV.
On the news
I’m actually watching the trial heavy right now. I was just looking at the news and I was like, “Man it’s just strange how you can see everyone’s agenda when they talk about things. It’s kind of sad. CNN is almost like TMZ. Certain things are like, “Oh man, this is really like entertainment. “ It’s really all for ratings at the end of the day and you squeeze a little information in there.
On Sports
That’s the only thing that’s real. The outcome of that is real. Although people want to believe that it is fixed like “We’re gonna go to game seven. The NBA fixed it.” Nah, it’s the real thing. That’s the real reality.
4)He fully supports Miley Cyrus
I like what Miley is doing right now. Being herself, expressing herself. I think it’s more of a reaction to people wanting her to be Hannah Montana. People want her to be something and she’s like ‘I’m not that. I was six years old! People want me to be six years old forever?’ That must be really frustrating. That’s her reaction to it. Maybe it’s loud but it’s understandable.
5) Jay-Z still very much enjoys his privacy, but is supportive of Beyonce wanting to share more of her life with her fans.
On Beyonce’s HBO Special
It gave me a little anxiety but you know it’s something she had/wanted to do. I had a little anxiety but it was all good. [...] It just feels weird just putting yourself out there in that sort of way, especially when you reveal so much in your music. It feels like any more, I’m going to be naked out here.
On if he’s over [success and money]
I think success is being able to do what you want to do on your terms.
On having more kids?
Absolutely. God willing. Get a little basketball team going.
On doing a “Best Of Both Worlds” type of Album with Beyonce
No way. You see how that didn’t end well (laughs) [referring to tour w/ R.Kelly]
6) He still has love for Damon Dash
What we built you can’t take that away. So no matter what, no time or space in how many years I ain’t seen him, love is still there because what we’ve done will forever be stamped in history. We created something that’s gonna go down forever. I can only have love for Damon. I just don’t know where we are in our life. Are we still the same two young men at that time or will we gel in that way [again]. We’re two different people.
On if he feels bad that it ended the way it did
In life, I can’t control everything. I can’t control the things in life. Of course, if someone is having problems, I have ultimate confidence that he’ll find his way because he’s an amazing and really smart guy. He’s a hustler and highly intelligent. I always root for him and believe that he’ll find his way out of it but I can’t control what happens in life. People make decisions and do things and lead them to whatever is going to happen for them.
7) Jay-Z believes that everyone is scared and that is one of the sole things that are holding people back from achieving greatness:
What I believe is don’t listen to anyone, everyone is scared. Everyone tells you how things worked out but it worked out for YOU that way. It’s even hard for me. I just give the information and then let the artist make their decision. I can’t say, “You should do this because this is how it works!” It may not work that way for artist A, B, or C the same way it worked out for me. All I can do is provide information. So don’t listen to anyone because their experiences is unique to who they are. And then a lot of people will try to put their fears on you, “You can’t do that!” No, you can’t do it. They’re just projecting it. They’re putting things they don’t think that they can do on you, and you possibly can do it.
Like my uncle, I don’t think he meant anything by it and I’ve said it so many times today. I know he’s going to be at Christmas, “Why do you keep bringing this up?” My uncle said I’m never going to sell a million records. I sold a million records like a million times. I’m his nephew, I don’t think he meant any malice, he was just projecting his fears. “Are you crazy? How are you going to do that?” How? I’m sure there are things that I do now that he can’t believe I was able to accomplish. He couldn’t even see it at the time. So he was just projecting and putting his fears on me. Always believe that you’re great even before anybody else believes it.
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